Faith was held high during the 12 hour prayer vigil held yesterday for Michelle Bullard at the Swann Quarters Baptist Church. Michelle Bullard was abducted at gunpoint from a friend's home and has not been seen or heard from since January 2nd.

The prayerful visitors to the Church included the Chief Deputy of the Lee County Sheriff's Office, Kevin Bryant as well as many of Michelle's friends and family. All seemed to be searching for understanding, hoping God would soon reveal the whereabouts of this 23 year old woman.

In my own moments of prayerful thought I was reminded that I don't know everything. God does. And as much poking and prodding as I do to find out as much as I can about anything I investigate, I was reminded that "good things come to those that wait."

I remember when I first went deer hunting. I stood in a stand and waited and waited. I hated the passiveness of just sitting and waiting for a deer to come within range. In contrast I loved duck hunting, it was a bit more aggressive. You laid out decoys, and you had a duck call to encourage those flying out of range to circle around so that you could get a shot off. Duck hunting is more my style. But you still have to wait. It is just a different kind of waiting.

I have been a duck hunter in this missing person case. I have not been a deer hunter.

What I also haven't been is a bird hunter, as in quail hunting. I may have made a mistake about that. I am beginning to think that this mystery may be better solved by old fashioned bird hunting. Walk along as the hound points and flushes the bird out of cover. I don't know why I never thought of searching for Michelle this way. This seems to be the ideal way for law enforcement to cover such a vast terrain. Let the bird dogs do the work.
I had Monica Caison with me yesterday as we did a little bird dogging ourselves. I got off on a tangent and pulled Monica away from the vigil to about where we should begin sniffing around in order to flush out somethings. Earlier yesterday I called around looking for any information about abandoned cars, particularly ones that had been not only abandoned but also set on fire. I was specifically interested in those abandoned and burned cars found in a three county area the day Michelle was abducted. I found one.

A car had been abandoned and burned in Harnett County at the intersection of Ray and Rambeau Road. This location was of interest because of the close proximity of HWY 210 and the location David Wilson told his brother he spent the night. HWY 210 South goes directly into Cedar Creek where Michelle's belongings were discovered. Cedar Creek is also where David Wilson's brother and sister live. In the opposite direction, Ray Road runs into Nursery Road. Nursery Road is where David Wilson's brother said he met and talked with David Wilson for nearly 2 hours persuading him to return home. Afterward, David Wilson was stopped on his way home by a Deputy and died as a result of a self inflicted gunshot wound.

As it turned out the car was towed to a company on Ponderosa Road in Olivia. There I was told that only the car's backseat was burned out. Apparently, when many amateur criminals set cars on fire to hide evidence, they set the interior on fire then close the car doors. When the car doors close, the oxygen gets burned off and the fire goes out. The burned car has since been taken to a salvage company in Dunn. We looked at the location the car was dumped and burned, Ray Road and Rambeau Rd. and found a gathering of some burned women's clothing and a scorched orange pillow. Clearly this is some of the belongings of the abandoned car I was looking for.

Near by was a self serve car wash that Monica reasoned would be a good place for someone to wash up a dirty truck. Seeing how it was one of the only car washes I came across in the immediate target area we went by to take a look. Monica immediately noticed a small section of duct tape. Not knowing if tape was used in the abduction because no official report of that was given out to the media, we still took interest because many abductors will use duct tape to bind their victims. We also noticed a truck filled with bags of garbage on the site of the car wash. This trash, we later found out, is used to hold the trash from the car wash. We had hoped that the trash may hold a clue but unfortunately, according to the owner, the trash had been dumped after Michelle's abduction thus eliminating what small chance there was to find something, anything. It was a long shot, an extremely long shot but in Monica's many successful years of experience in looking for the missing, everything and anything is worth looking into. She said, "Many times all ya have to go on is a wing and a prayer."

Odd as it may seem that someone with links to the abduction of Michelle Bullard would drive a stolen car, park it on the side of the road, and set it on fire when there are many other places to stash the car in the woods. That is unless the car broke down for some reason. If something like that were to happen there would have to have been an accomplice. Someone that could be trusted, a brother for instance, someone he could depend on to keep a secret. Rule number one: people return to familiar territory when under tremendous stress.

If David Wilson, as reported, told his brother that he spent the night at this location this may have been done to establish an alibi, a reason for being there in case a bank surveillance camera captured his picture or someone remembered seeing him. He must have spent a good deal of time in the area to have expected someone to believe that a jacked up crazy man would find a quiet moment in a grocery parking lot to catch a few z-z-z-z's.

So what is there of interest in this Ray Road area? In previous updates I have shown a couple of areas of interest on Nursery Road. But nearby Ray Road also offers a few areas of interest.

Abandoned trailer parks, eerie places to hide someone. Monica and I walked through this area and it seemed to be a perfect hiding place. Definitely a place for dogs to search.

But then there are many, many other hiding places between Broadway and Cedar Creek. And each one of those places will be systematically searched until Michelle comes home. We just have to be patient, sit and wait, let the bird dogs flush a few things out.

 

IMAGES OF AN AFTERNOON WITH MONICA CAISON

Even the smallest of things may lead to a break in a case.

You never know what something tens of thousands will over look. Burnt clothing laying on the side of a road offer some clue to something. Yet these clothes lay just off the side of a road for 6 weeks unnoticed.

Someone used to own this jacket before it was burned up in the back seat of a stolen car.

So close to being a perfect hiding spot.

Monica Caison, Founding Director of the CUE Center for Missing Persons, examines a few square feet of the acres of potential hiding places in this one abandonded trailer park near Nursery Road.